Oops!
by VeronicaWayland
Summary: Hermione and Ginny find themselves quite suddenly and accidentally in another time with some surprisingly familiar characters. It's a work in progress please let me know what you think!
1. Chapter 1

1

there was far too much going on to concentrate on potions. Even Snape was having a hard time, in reigning in his students, as he himself was distracted by the events that had taken place earlier that day. This particular class was always difficult to handle because of its unusual size, but today it was near impossible to keep their attentions focused on the task at hand. It looked as though none of the students' Displacement Potions would hold up to even their normal dismal standards.

Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley had partnered together since the beginning of term. They had always made a good team, what with their harmonious combination of intelligence and common sense, but today these two friends were finding it difficult to even read the ingredient labels correctly, let alone prepare and blend them into anything that remotely resembled a potion.

"Ooooh!" Hermione said in an attempt to convey her exasperation. "I cannot believe that he could be that stupid!"

"Ha! I can believe it! Andeven I didn't see this coming, so what does that tell you?" Ginny replied as she randomly tossed into their cauldron a handful of whatever it was stored in the turquoise jar nearest her. "That he deserves whatever punishment he's got coming to him, thats what it says."

Both girls were so absorbed in their discussion that neither took much notice of what they were adding to the mixture. It wasn't until Hermione and Ginny bumped hands over the cauldron that they paused to consider the situation they had absentmindedly put themselves into. With their ingredient filled hands still poised over the potion, they paused to mumble a quick "oops sorry" at having collided together, and glanced downward at the dangerous combination of materials they had been about to carelessly drop into their concoction. Both giggled in relief at the disaster they had narrowly avoided and were lowering their arms when they heard something completely and utterly unexpected.

"Hermione! Ginny! Wait! Stop!" Professor Snape shouted across the room. The two teens were so surprised (and slightly disturbed) by their cold and seemingly unfeeling teacher addressing them in such a familiar and friendly manner that they let go of what they had been holding and spun around to stare at him in shock. Snape instantly regretted his uncharacteristic display of concern when bits of the falling ingredients made contact with the girls hazardous potion. Instantly, Hermione and Ginny were swallowed up in a flash of brilliant blue light.


	2. Chapter 2

The girls felt themselves blasted violently off of their feet. They landed hard on the cold stone of the dungeon floor to a chorus of high-pitched screams. Shouts of "bloody hell" etc. could be heard from a few of the more colorful students in the classroom.

"Would you stop screaming! We're fine! So shut it already!" Ginny shouted at the screamers from her painful position on the ground, annoyed by the way they aggravated her already pounding head. Still confused by the blast, and the shock of being thrown to the floor, she remained on the ground, oblivious to the sudden chaos that had erupted around her.

Hermione, however, had jumped to her feet and was standing defensively over Ginny, wand pointed at a petrified group of first years and an unfamiliar teacher who had suddenly replaced their classmates and friends in the room around them. The students appeared to be as shocked by the two girls who had suddenly materialized before them as the girls were to find themselves materialized. Some of the unfamiliar students continued to scream, despite Ginny's threats. A few of the more courageous were scrambling for their wands which, them being first years and all, they had left naively in their bags or at their desks. The unknown professor, however, had immediately drawn her wand and was attempting to shield her students from the unfamiliar girls.

"Ginny!" Hermione whispered frantically, "Get up!" and, when Ginny still remained on the floor, "Move! Now!" Finally realizing the situation, Ginny scrambled upright, joining Hermione's panicked search for a way out of the classroom. Fortunately, the room's lay-out remained unchanged, unlike the people in it, and the girls found the door right where they had left it. They quickly exited the room, almost tripping over their own feet as they ran half backwards out the door and down the hallways, only stopping once they had climbed three floors, crossed at least half of the castle, and reached a familiar trick tapestry. They ducked behind it and hid, almost cowering in its shadows.

"What. the Hell. was THAT?!" Ginny practically screamed into the dim unused passageway behind them. "I didn't recognize _any_ of those kids! And that was definitely not Snape in there."

"Well I was just thinking about that -"

"Duh! What the hell else would you possibly be thinking about? The Hanson brothers?!" The shock of finding herself, quite involuntarily, in a such strange situation had finally worn off, and Ginny was having a difficult time controlling the panic that was beginning to creep into her thoughts. She had just begun to let go of the mistrust and apprehension and fear that she had accumulated throughout the course of the war, but they had all come flooding back the second she had started to panic.

"Ginny! Calm down! Merlin, just let me think." Hermione paced up and down the passage. Over and over she walked past the unadorned walls of the short alcove which resided at the bottom of the staircase that filled the rest of the passage. Every once in a while she would stop and turn back to Ginny who had perched on the bottom edge of the steps, as though about to say something, but each time she turned away only to begin pacing again.

For a while, Ginny let her be, as she attempted to make sense of the situation herself, but after a good ten minutes of sitting panicked in the dark with no answers... "Hermione! Just tell me what you're thinking! This is driving me crazy."

"I'm sorry, I just can't figure out any of this. Ugh, its so frustrating! I just – I don't know!"

"Don't know what? What can't you figure out??"

"Where we are! It looks as though we never left the castle, but then where is everyone else? And who were those kids? I don't – I just ..."

At the other end of the passageway, at the top of the stairwell, a pudgy young man pushed aside a painting (of an ancient Greek-looking woman and a small house elf, who were dressing in a surprisingly similar fashion) unseen on his way down to the kitchens for a little mid-afternoon meal. It wasn't until he was more than halfway down the staircase that he heard the young women conversing in the passage ahead of him. Realizing that they were as yet unaware of his presence (and being slightly above average on the nosiness scale) he decided almost unconsciously to remain in the shadows.

Ginny, seeing that Hermione was almost feverish in her frustration, attempted to reign in her thoughts to a coherent and understandable level. "Well, if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck" Ginny said standing and gripping Hermione by the shoulders. "So lets just assume that this is Hogwarts. Now what have you got?"

"Hmmm... well, if this _is_ Hogwarts, then it stands to reason that_ if_ we haven't left the castle, but we know that we have in fact done some sort of traveling, because we are definitely not in the same place we were ten minutes ago – wait... gasp! Ten minutes ago! Oh! Ginny! Ten minutes ago wasn't ten minutes ago! We weren't actually ever ten minutes ago! This isn't the now that it was! Do you see?"

"... English, Hermione, English!"

"We haven't traveled anyplace because we've traveled time! Do you know what this means?" Hermione practically shouted. "We've stumbled upon a new form of time travel! And I don't even remember how we did it. Shoot. Did we add goat's liver or cows? Or maybe it was elephant? Do you remember? And I think there was a --"

"Ummm... Hermione? Did you say time travel?" Ginny asked incredulously.

"Yes, but I can't seem to recall the type of whisk we used – and that may be important to the potion-making process. We shouldn't overlook even the smallest things, you know."

"Oh, of course." Ginny nodded enthusiastically. "You mean things like what time we've traveled to and what the hell we're going to do about it? Because those types of things just might be important! Who knows!" she said growing steadily louder. "But why would we do that?! Pshsh! When we could be discussing elephant livers!"

Ginny seemed to be unable to contain her frustration, for just then her wand emitted a burst of bright red sparks illuminating the area around them and the boy who until that moment had been hidden in shadow. Frightened at having been discovered eavesdropping on such a serious and private conversation, the boy turned and fled, but not before Hermione and Ginny caught a glimpse of his face.

Ginny's jaw dropped and she gasped, turning to Hermione. "Was that..."

"Yes, I think it was" she replied. "And I think I've just figured out when we are."


	3. Chapter 3

3

a young Peter Pettigrew pushed open the painting at the top of the staircase, and fell through the opening into a deserted hallway, quickly slamming the portrait shut behind him. Breathing heavily, he fled towards the Gryffindor common room. He knew he could hide behind his friends if need be.

Ginny and Hermione, however, were not chasing after him, as he had thought, but had stayed almost rooted to the exact same spot they had been in. They stared at each other in stunned silence, neither one able to form a coherent sentence. Accidentally finding yourself in 1977 can do that to a person.

Ginny was the first to break the silence. "Bloody Hell!" she said looking in the direction of the portrait Peter had just exited through.

Hermione sighed. "My sentiments exactly" she answered. She sat looking very much like a female version of Auguste Rodin's statue The Thinker on the steps Ginny had recently vacated. "Well, at least now we know we've gone at least as far back in time as 1977. That was – I mean _this is_ the marauder's seventh year, but it could be farther back. Maybe their 6th or 5th year? I wasn't able to tell much about Pettigrew's age," she said as though she had a horrid taste in her mouth, "but then again I've never been a good judge of these things. Plus it was difficult to see past the initial sniveling_ weasel-like_ exterior."

"Ugh! I know! We've got to get away from here or I'll do something stupid like track him down." Ginny muttered through clenched teeth. "As much as I want to strangle him with my bare hands for what he's done – or umm, _will_ do... is that right?"

"Yes. The rat doesn't go traitor until after graduation." Hermione confirmed. "And you know we can't change anything while we're here."

"Yeah, well, this whole space time continuum thing sucks. Couldn't we just kill him and see what happens?" Ginny asked hopelessly, already knowing the answer.

* * *

"Come on, guys! I'm not making this up!" Peter's voice was starting to sound a bit whiny. He had run into James Potter and Sirius Black as they exited the Gryffindor common room. Both were, believe it or not, on their way to the library. James was attempting to stage a casual run-in with Lily Evans on her way out so that he could escort her back to the tower in a gentlemanly fashion. Sirius, on the other hand, actually needed to hit the books, figuratively speaking. He had put off doing his work from the first few weeks of school whilst he reacquainted himself with Hogwarts' female population and had run out of teacher-approved excuses for why his assignments were missing.

"Yeah, sure. Whatever you say." was James' only answer. He turned and rolled his eyes at Sirius who smiled, silently agreeing that Peter had finally lost it.

The three boys turned a sharp corner, continuing on their trek to the library when Peter squeaked. He was pointing ahead of them at a trick tapestry, one of the many secret passages they had discovered during 2nd year.

"There it is!" he said, sounding terrified. "That's the passage I found them in!"

"The future girls?" Sirius said, sounding exasperated. "Just give it up already. You don't actually expect us to believe that you of all people-"

And then the hidden door swung open.


End file.
